E-Cigs Helpful for Quitting Smoking

A study published in the science journal PLOS ONE supports what e-cig smokers have been saying all along. E-cigs can aid smokers in quitting.

Dr. Riccardo Polosa from the University of Catania conducted this first clinical trial from June 2010 to February 2011.

Three hundred smokers were studied. When they signed up for the trial, none of the smokers indicated that they wanted to quit. Each was given e-cigs to smoke throughout the year, and each group of 100 given a different amount of nicotine.

Despite their lack of intent to quit, 13% of the smokers were no longer smoking cigarettes by the trial’s end.

And between 9% and 12% of all participants reduced their smoking by at least half, no matter the amount of nicotine given over the study period.

This end result is all the more remarkable given that none of the participants had any intention to quit. This result means in part that the effects of e-cigs on quitting just might be better than those achieved using medications currently available, like patches and nicotine replacements like gum.

More research will be needed to compare the effects of e-cigs and nicotine replacement regimens, but this study’s results are encouraging.

Why did so many of the e-cig smokers quit smoking over the trial period?

The researchers are not yet sure, but one theory is that because e-cigs mimic traditional cigarette smoking, it is easier to accept lower nicotine and eventually to quit. In the study

Researchers in America suggest that one significant advantage of e-cigs for quitting smoking is that smokers can easily reduce their intake of nicotine an advantage. Further, e-cigs like Zemo e-cigs can give smokers nicotine without the harmful additives present in traditional cigarettes.